350

Les Baigneuses, vers 1900-1905

We will not know you, particolour
Figures, while you hesitate so—

You must force yourselves into
Action, slip entirely into the grey

Water, feeling it yield to you,
Weed and stones blowing about

Your solid calves, moved as if by
A sudden, capricious breeze.

There is a kind of fire in the water,
Bellowing softly of its power—

An old fire, dwindling inside an
Ashen frame of brittle wood—

Liable at any second to collapse
And bear your fair bodies with it

Down the tide. O do not remain
So chastely at the water's edge!

Be taken, in this first way, if you
Would not fall to lesser powers.

Abandon yourselves, Mädchen, to
The cool flame, the desolate wind.

349

White Canoe, 1990-1

It is ivory, or marble—
Some blinding material else,
Some godbone out of the
Shadow of a singularity—

It is fulminant, impossible,
Cleaving the water without
Seeming to touch it,
Its reflection bowed

And no less bright.
In the stern a creamy shape
Lies, indistinct. Feathers?
We cannot say. About it,

Marigold lights play,
As if radiating from
The very water. In the
Surface, the colours of

The forest tremble, fragile
And cool. Frond greens,
Cloudlike blues, dying
Amber, here and there

Orbs of white, as though
Some beneficent spirit
Had hung gig-lamps in the
Trees and sown them with

Fire. Below these veils of
Colour, yet more luminous
Shapes may float, trailing
Captured stars in their gills.

348

Pelican (Stag), 2004

Stride, dunkler Held, through
The cobalt-grey overflow
Of daylight between palms :
No room here for timidity or
Complaint, no room than for
The language of the animal
That dies before you, under
Your lance, in the heat of its
Own blood and breath, while
Its last song elaborates, as it
Waits for you to bring it into
Silence. The palms are bold
In their blazon, spilt yoghurt
A callous white, mustard,
Sickening green. Who dress
The trees in such harsh shade?
May be some lower god,
Some insensate servitor, some
Atom out of farthest stars,
Paint them so, thoughtlessly.
You prowl the jungle floor,
Hauling life in with your eyes,
Throwing your hunger upon it.
Go with the spirit : swift, still.
Follow its darker waters there.

347

Gasthof zur Mundentalsperre, 2002

Fireflies move in the grasses,
Faded, flowerlike points at the
Dark edge of luminescence :

In the empty vault overhead, far
Correspondents mirror them,
Motionless carriers of a brighter

Fire, caught there in the arms of
Nebulæ, sung to sleep above the
Softening world. Our bold pair

Stand in their antique costumes
Next to a white gate of frail
Wood, looking wordlessly out

From behind their generous
Moustaches. There is something
Rueful in their posture, as if

They sought uselessly to warn
Against the first mistake of an
Already doomed hero. We are,

In a certain measure, their last
Charges. The wall beside them
Is coralline, bright with colour.

346

Bewegtes Wasser, 1898

Alberich, what faith is still in you,
Watching those white bodies pass
In the water above you, and their
Carmine hair billowing in great
Clouds? Your eyes are shallow
And grey as musselshells. They
Seem to glow with a dull longing.
Come out from behind the torn
Curtain of your beard, speak to
These bright women, come out
Before their nakedness. Forth
Also, words of awkward devotion!
The maidens rise sleepily out of
The deep water : slender, almost
Brittle legs trailing back into the
Dark, backs arched languidly,
Slight breasts hanging softly on
The tide. Their faces flowerlike
And motionless. Ah, he cannot yet
Speak, for love. The water moves
Gently, a fabric of violet and gold.

345

As he passes one house, he sees
An open door at its side and in
The rigid light the door casts a
Pale, shapeless object, as if in
Passing a stranger had made the
Place an offering, leaving it at
The boundary, before the portal.
The shape stirs, revealing itself
To be a bulldog, an albino, red
Around the eyes and gums, no
Collar about its grizzled neck,
Its ears ragged and scarred. He
Slows and stops, watching the
Animal pace wearily out of the
Light toward him, its tread even
And resigned. A few feet from
Him, it stops and seems to wait
For a command. It is darker in
The moonlight, its fur the blue
Of shallow water. Its eyes bear
Out miniature reflections of the
Moon and the stars. There is a
Film of liquid over its nose that
Is silver in the ambient light.
He begins to walk away down
The street. It stays where it is.

344

A sparrow calls outside the
Window, and the grey light
Of morning comes through it.
Before the window, the voices
Of the congregation. Of the
Faces there a light bears out
Other than the fittings bestow.
The voice of the Lord is a
Powerful voice! and it is hope,
Against its abiding futility.

An egret steps gently into the
Shallows near a runoff pipe,
Its plumage a cold white in the
Shade of a willow. Lights wind
Silently across its legs, ribbons
Cast up by the slight motion of
The pale green water.

How empty we are,
In our shackles, each cool day!

343

Stati d'animo serie II. Quelli che vanno, 1911

Are you sleeping, madame, or only resting,
As the carriage forges its darkening way?
What appointment awaits you we cannot
Divine, whether at this moment a family
Stations itself about the table to receive you,
Or whether yet some engagement of another
Sort—some vagabond in a broad raincoat!—
Waits in a restaurant near your country stop,
Watching the hour in each light before the
Stationhouse, ready to identify your figure
As it should appear momentarily before him.
Rain weaves slowly across the pane of your
Compartment, wavering in ropes of a dull
Light, that sustain boldly, only collapsing as
Further gusts force them down. At each
Coupling, the carriages seem more fluid.
A faint, calming light shivers in the corridor—
Home now? What hour is it? She murmurs
Into the darkness of her collar, rousing quietly,
Motionless. There is a blue lamp at her bedside
Table she would extinguish, and so to sleep.

She opens her eyes to the dim compartment.
Far yet out of all rest, all home. For a moment
Her thoughts part from her in her weariness.

342

Let the redbud tree shiver
And the rain break
Across each segment of its
Outheld, meagre branches.

At each junction, let leaves
Rise out of bunches of its
Flowers, loose crowns of
Yellowed green and peach,

Singular leaves swaying
As drops of rain batter
Them : each, depositing
A small part of its mass,

Let catch the light.
Let the redbud tree watch
In its passive colours,
Let no silence master the

Water in its course.
Afford the cardinals their
Voice, that the air should
Bear their keener sound.

O light the day in such
Elements—until it should
Fail—wherein, let darker
And subtler shapes be found.

341

Peter Altenberg, 1909

His moustaches are the shape and colour
Of a tarnished sickle. Soft stains indeed!
There is one in black at his upper lip, of
Which the edges trail the cramped air,
Bristles of frayed wire spraying from a
Sleeve of jaundiced flesh. His mouth is
Barely visible beneath, a fat grub's smart
Orifice. He holds it closed, melancholic.
His neck the watery red of rare beefsteak,
And at its upper boundary a crimson ear,
Full in its broken bloom, and the slight
Outline of his remaining hair. A majority
Of his skull is hairless, and yet it seems
Striated as a rough opening in a facade
Of sedimentary rock, each colour gentle
In its own kind. He would reach into
The air before him—are his malformed
Hands articulate, or simply for show?
How will we know when he begins to act,
Or when his true expression will occur?
His rueful eyes pronounce nothingness.